Nursing staff particularly affected by COVID-19

Pflegepersonal besonders stark von COVID-19 betroffen

Healthcare workers were most affected by COVID-19 sick leave from March to May 2020. This is confirmed by a current analysis by the AOK Scientific Institute.

As the evaluation of the AOK shows, there were 1,283 sick leave related to COVID-19 per 100,000 employees in geriatric care during this period. In healthcare and nursing, there were 1,237 people affected per 100,000 employees. Nurses were affected about 2.5 times as often as other occupational groups. The number of sick people who had to be treated in a clinic was also above average for nurses in old people's homes and clinics with around 157 people per 100,000 employees. The comparative value is 91.

The lowest sickness-related absences in connection with COVID-19 can be seen in the professions in university teaching and research (110 persons affected per 100,000 employees) and in agriculture (121 persons affected per 100,000 employees). Activities that are more likely to be performed in the home office or in the great outdoors were associated with a lower risk of infection.

Home office as protection against infection
“Certain groups of workers who continued to work even during pandemic times appear to be more affected by COVID-19. These are primarily professions in contact with other people. But professions in meat processing or warehousing were also badly affected, "says Helmut Schröder, deputy managing director of WIdO." It remains to be seen whether the differences between the occupational groups due to infection sources in individual companies will become even clearer in the coming weeks and months . ”

55,000 sick leave due to COVID-19
From March to May 2020, a total of around 55,000 employees of the 11.6 million AOK-insured workers were disabled by a doctor in connection with a COVID-19 diagnosis. This corresponds to 474 per 100,000 AOK-insured employees or 0.5 percent of the AOK-insured employees. Women were affected more often (0.6 percent) than men (0.4 percent). Sickness reports related to COVID-19 were the most common (0.7 percent) among younger employees up to the age of 20, and the least common among those aged 30 to 39 (0.4 percent). In more than three quarters of the affected employees, the verified evidence of SARS-CoV-2 was documented on the certificate of incapacity for work (78.7 percent), in less than a quarter a clinical suspicion of COVID 19 without virus detection was documented.

Regional hotspots are also reflected in the AU data
Regional differences in the COVID-19 infection process are also reflected in the incapacity for work. Regions affected by the spread of the virus, such as the district of Heinsberg, the Hohenlohe district, Rosenheim or the district of Rosenheim, are also expected to occupy the top spots in the AU quotas. In the district of Heinsberg 2.2 percent and in Hohenlohe district 2.1 percent of the AOK-insured workers were declared incapable of working in connection with COVID-19. Regions like Cottbus with an AU rate of 0.03 percent or Dessau-Roßlau with 0.06 percent, on the other hand, showed only a fraction of corona-related absenteeism compared to the regional hotspots. Up to May 2020, the district of Gütersloh was still below the national average (0.5 percent) with an AU rate of 0.42 percent.

Hospital stays related to Covid-19 tend to be older
From March to May 2020, a total of around 10,500 AOK-insured employees were treated in a hospital in connection with SARS-CoV-2. This corresponds to 91 people affected per 100,000 AOK-insured employees. The average duration of treatment for these hospitalized workers was about seven days.

The data show that a potentially severe COVID-19 course is more likely to affect older workers than younger ones: 168 out of 100,000 employees over the age of 60 were treated in hospital, while the comparative value of younger employees under 20 was less than a third (51 per 100,000 employees). The professions in the meat industry occupy the top spot with 173 hospital admissions per 100,000 AOK-insured employees.

Sickness reports for mild colds above average
The data also show how the regulations on telephone sick leave for minor colds - without suspected COVID-19 - had an effect. The special regulations for telephone sick leave for minor diseases of the upper respiratory tract applied nationwide from March 9 to May 31, 2020. The proportion of respiratory diseases in all diagnoses was almost three percentage points in March 2020 and about two percentage points above the respective monthly average in April this year the past five years.

"This speaks for the responsible handling of the medical profession and employees with the temporary rules on sick leave by telephone," says Schröder.